Carleton has created an Aboriginal Education Council to address aboriginal issues on campus, according to a Nov. 19 announcement.
“The council will be advising the president on matters of aboriginal education and retention of aboriginal students,” said Clealls John Medicine Horse Kelly, an associate Carleton journalism professor sitting on the council.
He said the council will promote anything that makes Carleton a hospitable environment for aboriginal students.
“Students coming from an aboriginal community sometimes have trouble adjusting. We want to try to adjust that,” he said.
The council will include three students, 18 staff and faculty—eight of whom are aboriginal—and 12 community representatives who are First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, according to Carleton’s media relations co-ordinator Chris Cline.
Cline said via email the council will seek to “promote, guide and oversee” Carleton’s Aboriginal Coordinated Strategy that was approved by Senate, the highest academic body at Carleton.
It reports directly to the president and to the vice-chancellor and through the president to the university’s board of governors and senate, Cline said.
He said the council will meet approximately once a month, and aims to prepare an annual report for submission to the Board of Governors and Senate.
